The invention relates to the field of exchange and/or reaction between fluids, whether it concerns the exchange of calories or frigories, for example, by heating or cooling, or exchange of constitutive elements, for example by filtering or separation or absorption or desorption, or injection of a product(s), or a chemical reaction.
Numerous devices and numerous plants have been proposed to ensure the aforementioned exchanges (or processing). Most of them, whether they function continuously or intermittently, are designed so as to ensure a single function in a satisfactory manner, without the possibility of carrying out other functions. In a reactor functioning in an intermittent mode (for example, of the “batch” type), it is usually difficult to heat or cool reactants at the elected control level, even if this type of reactor is fitted with a double shell system or a coiled piping elements. Among the exchangers functioning continuously, are found, heat exchangers of the said “plate” and “tubes and calenders” types.
In the plate heat exchangers, only non-loaded fluids or very slightly loaded fluids may be dealt with, because of the reduced spacing between plates. On the other hand, they permit a relatively easy maintenance, because of their dismountability, but the volume defined between plates is reduced and dependent on the mode of plate manufacturing. In the tube and calender heat exchangers, it is possible to deal with loaded fluids by adapting tube diameters, but the maintenance connected, in particular, with pipe choking is difficult. Moreover, the presence of tubes makes these heat exchangers relatively bulky, which limits their applications.
In addition, neither of these types of heat exchangers are adapted to the other types of processings, such as filtering or separation. For these types of processings (or exchanges) which are not specifically thermal, there are numerous plants, but they are complex, bulky and poorly adaptable to processings different from those for which they were designed.